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Obamacare hasn't benefited me but the opposite.

When I heard about the Obamacare for first time, I was expecting to get benefits of it. The reality is it is a nightmare in my case. I am a worker who lives alone keeping a house. I pay mortgage, child support (one child) and all the expenses we all know (car insurance, phone, cable, electricity, water, car loan) and also pay my daughter college plan for the future. My gross annual income is around $50 000 but I get around $40 000 after taxes. Well, when I saw the health insurance marketplace this year, I couldn't find any plan lower than $330 for my age (51y/o) but this isn't the worse situation. The situation is this kind of plan (bronze) has a very high deductible ($4500) that applies to ALL the medical services including doctor visits, lab, etc. with my actual income, I don't get any government help to pay my health insurance. The company where I work has less than 50 employees and hasn't collective insurance. Then, the health marketplace is offering me a low end plan which cost more than $300 a month but with a high deductible. If I go with a Silver plan, it costs around $450 for my age that I can not afford. I thought to get a short term plan outside the marketplace but still has to pay the penalty if I chose a plan I can pay.

I am wondering how many people are affected in the same way this affecting me. It is sad for me to pay $330 a month for a health insurance that doesn't cover anything until my health expenses be more than $4500. As I said, if I go with a better plan, I have to pay $500 which is impossible in my situation.

The government should regulate what insurance companies offer. People of this country don't deserve it. I hope the Obamacare changes or something changes in favor of those having a similar situation to my. Frustrated and wanted to vent my case. Thanks.!

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Comments

It seems that the problem in your case isn't Obamacare, but healthcare costs in the US. Which is something that Obamacare strives to achieve. It's unfortunate that your company doesn't offer insurance because companies can often negotiate better plans than those offered on the individual market. With major healthcare costs easily reaching $100k for an event, health insurance in particular bronze plans do offer help in that area. And Obamacare mandates a maximum out of pocket cost of $6850 per person above premiums. It seems like a lot and often is unreachable. But before Obamacare you were at the mercy of the insurance company. Only a few states would cover pre-existing illnesses which meant that many people were uninsurable due to prior illness... seems crazy. Also Obamacare makes make many basic coverages mandatory for all plans. It's not Obamacare its the insurance industry. I would have gone with a single payer option like many other sensible countries have done. Take a look at the cost of healthcare around the world... something is wrong-

I should have included the chart that shows life expectancy with the spending costs. Are we getting what we are paying for? Certainly there are many complicated variables as to why our life expectancy is not up to the rest of the world when compared to costs. A recent article put guns, drugs and car accidents as a major player. But in terms of the amount of money that is spent in the US, the insurance and healthcare costs have been growing untethered by the "free" market of the last many decades, this is not a new problem and it's not the ACA that is the problem. Regulation that requires insurance that can't be dropped because of pre-existing conditions, limits on money and profits not spent on healthcare by the insurance companies, standardize what coverage is reasonable... it's a start to a very difficult problem. I hear many people complain that their insurance costs have gone up.

For the past 35 years that I have purchased my own insurance... it has continually gone up. For many, they are not accustomed to paying for their own, or have transitioned out of the workforce where it was part of the "package". Or, they reach certain age groups where the insurance costs naturally go up dramatically. If it's not going to be the ACA, what is going to control the costs if the Congress has it's way to rescind Obamacare? Go back to where it was, and let the insurance companies pick and choose the most profitable coverage.. I'd like to know if any Congressman has ever purchased individual insurance.... ever.

So what would be your plan if you did not purchase a plan and you had a costly medical condition? Would you simply let it kill you? <crickets> No, at some point when the condition became unbearable, you would go to a hospital at which point you would get expensive treatment and a huge bill. If you can't afford $8K (the maximum you would pay for the premium and provider costs), how would pay off $1M for cancer? Perhaps bankruptcy? Who would take the financial hit? The taxpayer and the hospital (which would simply pass on its loss in the form of higher costs of those of us RESPONSIBLE enough to get covered).

And unlike like all the other costs in your life, your cost for coverage & procedures goes down if you have any change to your income. Now you may feel that you are stressed to the limit for living expenses, but the framers of the ACA proscribed these limits; if you think that they are too high, then vote for politicians who will reduce it by increasing the subsidies; these politicians will also tend to support a program like Medicare-For-All, which would lower the costs.

Another thing to think about. If you are paying all this and don't have the insurer pay anything, thank your happy a33 that you didn't have a condition that costs so much; as for me, I'd take being healthy and NOT using insurance to being sick and "getting my money's worth".

In my opinion, we are not getting what we are paying for because the system is so corrupted by the greed of the drug companies and the medical industry that is pumping out super expensive treatments that don't address the causes of the conditions and often make be worse in the long run.

This in turn is why the cost of insurance is so high. If the medical field would put its efforts toward long term health, more would be spent on nutrition counseling and less on drugs, and overall, FAR less would be spent in total medical costs.

That's true, even hospitals spice up the prices of their daily in-patient fee, and prices it close to a 5-star hotel and more. Not only do they cover the expenses of bedding, medication and performing test, the amount of money that the hospital major share holders make is enough to be able to give everyone working there a raise, as well as provide occasional freebies and discounts to patients.

I am pretty sure that the experience has been different for everyone, and with any sweeping policy change you are bound to get those who benefit and those who do not. The question is really which one is the majority, and was the change worth it. Again, though, with that you have different ways of measuring it and it depends who you ask and where you look, so basically you can really come up with any answer or anecdote that you want, but until more clear data comes in I think that we are kind of waiting to see what will happen.